The Good Suicides Read Online Free PDF

many holidays, ended up submerging her little by little in a melancholy state in which laziness and boredom also played a large part. “Abel, your mama is being very silly,” she said out loud, in order to hear some sound that didn’t proceed from the television. She felt like crying, like letting the world know she was still there. And, without meaning to, almost automatically, she thought that if she disappeared, no one would miss her until at least Monday. And that with a bit of luck … Her mother called her every day, although certainly, knowing her, she wouldn’t raise the alarm until the mountain of unanswered calls became worrying. Tomás might send her a message over the weekend. Or not. And María, certainly, would scream the place down if she couldn’t locate her on Monday as soon as she got back. But it was Friday. Like Ruth, her boss’s ex-wife, noone would begin to look for her until it was, perhaps, too late. A vague, out-of-character fear overpowered her. You have to stop this, she told herself, and closed her eyes in an attempt to banish so many clouds from her generally clear mind.
    And then, when she opened them and saw that nothing would change just by wanting it to, she knew what she was going to do for the remaining six weeks of her pregnancy.
    “Leire, you’re on maternity leave.” Sergeant Martina Andreu said the sentence, stressing each syllable. “You’re going to have a baby and the doctor has ordered you to rest. Know what ‘rest’ means? I’ll tell you: no work.”
    Leire bit her lower lip, cursing herself for not having foreseen that the sergeant, the epitome of sense, would stop her project outright. Throughout the weekend she had gone over the idea to find the best way of putting it, but that Monday morning her arguments met the devastating logic of Sergeant Andreu head-on.
    “Also,” she continued, “the case isn’t ours anymore. Superintendent Savall assigned it to Bellver, you know that.”
    “Exactly.” She struggled to find the right words, which, given her opinion of Dídac Bellver, wasn’t exactly easy. She took a breath. At the end of the day she had nothing to lose. “Sergeant, I believe not much can be done to resolve this case from the station. You know how it is—emergencies build up and are replaced by others. And missing persons merges runaways and adults who leave without warning with genuine criminal cases. Like me, you’re aware that they can’t cope. And the subject of Ruth Valldaura is already old news … it’s been six months since she disappeared.”
    This—both were aware—was the worst thing of all. When it came to disappearances the first hours were critical, and in the case under discussion the alarm had been raised too late. The lack of clues made them think homicide, although Savall had used the absence of a body and thespecial circumstances surrounding this disappearance to assign the case to Bellver and his team.
    Leire had the feeling her words weren’t falling on deaf ears. Martina Andreu’s expression softened. Just a little, enough that she, who knew her well, could gather new strength.
    “On the other hand, we don’t lose anything if I spend part of my time on the case. I don’t want to do it without your permission,” she lied with the audacity of someone sure that she was right.
    What was certain was that she needed information, to see what stage the file had reached, and concrete facts, to know if there was anything new since the case had been officially taken out of Salgado’s hands in a stormy conversation with Superintendent Savall, after which everyone had feared that Héctor Salgado would resign from the corps.
    “Inspector Salgado did as much as he could, but, let’s not kid ourselves, the superintendent was right in one thing: Héctor was, still is, too involved in the case to be objective. And Bellver—”
    “Don’t go there,” Martina Andreu interrupted her. “As you’ve said, Bellver and his people are